Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
2016
1 Project Outline
Your team have been engaged to investigate the failure of an engineering structure and
propose a suitable re-design. The re-design will be checked for its conformity to the
given specifications. The design report should include a critical review of the analysis,
design calculations and experimental results obtained from laboratory exercises. It is
also a requirement that the design report conform to the format given in the provided
style guide.
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2 Design Problem
You are part of the graduate team at Trusst Me Engineers. As their name would suggest,
they specialise in trusses. Your team have been asked as an independent consultant to
investigate a truss structure whose permanent deflection under load is higher than the
allowable specification.
The structure of concern is a cantilevered, glass-based mountain lookout recently
commissioned by the local council. The council, wishing to recoup the costs for a
defective structure, wishes to demonstrait without a doubt that the original lookout
design was flawed this is the purpose of your consultation.
The lookout, intended only for pedestrian access, has a length of 15 m and a base of 3.5
m. Figure 1 below shows the basic truss structure which has a height of 1 m and
consists of six evenly spaced truss sections. The lookout is constructed from two
identical and parallel trusses. The decking of the truss is of transparent glass with a
mass of 115 kg/m2.
All truss members are made of C250L0 (AS/NZS 1163 - Cold-formed structural steel
hollow sections) circular hollow steel sections which has the properties as shown below
in Table 1.
Table 1: Truss member properties
Yield Strength
250 MPa
Tensile Strength
320 MPa
Density
8050 kg/m3
Mean Radius
0.07 m
Thickness
0.0035 m
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It is predicted that the permanent deformation occurred during the grand opening of
the lookout At the peak of this, video records show that there were 10 people located at
the end of the truss, and a further 40 people mingling on the deck (approximately
evenly distributed).
3 Report
3.1 Failure Report
You need to explain the failure of the truss using engineering principles. This should
take the form of a well presented report (neat, legible, handwritten calculations are
fine) which states your findings in a simple, clear and concise manner. As the
information provided by your onsite team is limited, be sure to state all assumptions
made in your failure report. Your client (the council) has experienced civil engineers
who will know if your report is erroneous.
3.3 Design
There is an opportunity for you to acquire another fee from this project by presenting
the council with a truss design that will not fail as the previous structure did under a
similar loading. If you can efficiently design this new truss and present it to them, then
the job (and fee) is in the bag.
This new truss must be of the same basic dimensions (length, width) and must be
designed to fit to the already constructed supports You must provide a design and
material specification for the new truss structure. The client wishes you to design your
structure utilising one of the materials which was tested during your lab sessions. All
assumptions and design decisions must be included and justified using engineering
principles. This is very important because your design report may be admissible in
court if another failure occurs.
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Your design must also be cost efficient, where using less materials for the construction
of the structure is considered to be roughly equivalent to lower costs. Evidence of this
optimisation should be included as part of your design discussion.
4 Assessment Criteria
See the CRA sheet provided on Blackboard for the breakdown of how your project
report will be marked. It is important to ensure you read the CRA sheet carefully.
A formative self and peer evaluation will be conducted in week 8, to give you and your
group an indication on how each group member is contributing. A summative
evaluation will be conducted at the end of semester to ensure fair distribution of marks
between group members based on each members contribution. If it is evident that a
group members contribution to the project is insufficient, their project mark will be
reduced accordingly. Groups will be required to submit minutes from team meetings,
submitted as an appendix. It is expected that a minimum of five quality sets of minutes
are submitted.
5 Milestones
Support sessions will be held in weeks 4, 7, 10 and 13 with teaching staff available to
provide assistance with elements of the project as follows:
Week
4
Milestone Details
Clarification and project description details, and checking group
formation. Groups members to show their timeline and each members
roles.
Group formation via Blackboard due Friday (19th August) by 5pm.
10
12
You will be advised of the days, times and rooms for these support sessions. Use these
milestones as a guide to track your recommended progress throughout the semester.
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